Olivia, Mourning (21 page)

“Bet you give him what for.”

“No. I liked what he said. Thinking about that stuff had been making me crazy. But it still doesn’t seem right to me, all the bad things that go on, and God just sitting up there watching.”

“Damn.” Mourning slapped his neck. “You see that one? Big as a hummingbird. Took a bite right out a me. Shoot.” He slapped himself again. “God sure coulda done without creatin’ these goldarn Pontiacer flies. They gonna get worse, the hotter it get. Then in the summer they say ox flies gonna come out. Folks say they can eat right into the hide of a cow. They like to land on the brisket, right where poor Dixby and Dougan ain’t gonna be able to chase ’em away. We gonna have to start rubbing ’em with turpentine and grease.”

They sat in silence after that, listening to the night sounds, until Olivia felt the darkness like a weight and went to bed.

The next morning Olivia eagerly threw off the comforter. They were going to do something different! She made a tangle of the clothes in her baskets, searching for the soft green Sunday dress that she kept rolled up in a petticoat. The smooth wooden floor was cool against her feet as she stepped into three petticoats. She was dressed and slipping her feet into her Roman sandals when three loud handclaps sounded outside the canvas flap – Mourning’s way of telling her that he was impatient to begin the day.

Olivia stuck her uncombed head through the doorway. “You’re wearing your work clothes?”

“We ain’t goin’ to no church on a Wednesday.”

She paused, realizing she’d had no idea what day of the week it was. One day blurred into another. “I suppose I’ll look silly in this dress,” she said, running her hands over its skirt. “I didn’t think it was Sunday. I just thought we’ll be meeting folks, and I want, you know, to make a good impression.”

Mourning’s blank face expressed a total lack of interest in her attire and she raised her chin. “Well, I’m going to keep it on. I might as well enjoy looking like a human being for one day.”

“Never know, might run into that Jeremy fellow.” Mourning raised and lowered his eyebrows.

She ignored him. “Maybe there’ll be someplace nice to eat.”

“You gonna spend good money on food? We got all the venison we can eat right here.”

“Well, maybe we can have a glass of nice cool lemonade.”

When she was ready to leave and came into the yard wearing her velvet bonnet, Mourning made a show of dusting off the seat cushion and bowing deeply before he stepped aside for her to climb up onto the wagon.

“Okay, Mourning Free, off we go. Our first trip into the great town of Fae’s Landing. Let’s take that longer way Jeremy told you about, where we don’t have to cross any water.”

“Yes, Miz Olivia,” Mourning replied, but there was no rancor in his voice and they chatted amiably all the way.

He had removed his shoes as soon as he got up on the wagon, like the guide books said, to save the leather. It made her remember him as a child, going barefooted all summer. Her heart tightened in her chest and she wished that she, or someone, could have looked out for him better.

They entered Fae’s Landing on a wide, rutted trail that passed the general store and ran toward the river. “Well I can’t say as I’ve ever seen such a sorry and worn-out looking place,” Olivia murmured. “This Podunk town makes Five Rocks look good.” She bit her upper lip and shook her head.

“It got a store,” Mourning said. “That what we come for.”

“Pier Street.” She read the battered sign out loud.

Mourning followed it down to the edge of the water. The “pier” revealed itself as a few lengths of straggly rope staked to a flat stretch of riverbank where folks tied up their rafts and canoes. From there a narrow, bumpy dirt road cut north toward the “bridge” Jeremy had told them about – six logs, laid side by side over the river.

“Lord, I’m glad we didn’t come up on that thing at night and try to drive over it,” Olivia said. “Wouldn’t much like to have to go under it, either. Look how low it sits. People on rafts must have to lay down flat and pray they don’t get knocked clean into the water.”

Mourning declined to comment. He turned the wagon around and drove slowly up and down the two nameless dirt roads that ran perpendicular to Pier Street. They were lined with sagging, weather-beaten, lopsided homes. The houses were all built of sawed lumber, but every part of them that could peel off, fall off, break, or rot away had. There were torn, dirty signs in the front windows of quite a few of them – Fresh Bread, Fresh Fish, Clean Room to Let, Good Food, Corn Whiskey 30¢.

“They don’t exactly stir up a desire to rush right in, do they?” She sighed. “Not one of them looks to have anything fresh, good, or clean to offer.”

The town looked deserted. The only human being they saw was an unshaven man sitting in a rocker on the front porch of the house that offered whiskey for sale. He touched a finger to the brim of his hat as they drove past and Olivia nodded back.

“We might as well go back down by the river and get our business with the saw mill done,” she said and Mourning silently turned the wagon around again.

A water-powered gristmill sat on the riverbank. The bottom half of it was built of crumbling stone and the top half of weather-beaten wood. Not far from it was a makeshift tannery – a lean-to and some skins hanging on poles. Neither seemed to be working that day. Mourning drove toward the saw mill, which also sat on the water, a little farther south. Its big wheel slap-slapped the river and a small yellow dog came racing around the side of the mill to bark at them.

“I don’t hear any saws,” she said. “Nothing’s buzzing around here but these green monsters.” She batted away a shiny horsefly.

“Ain’t much business goin’ on today,” Mourning agreed. He pulled lightly on the reins and eased himself to the ground. She climbed down and followed him, leaving a wide berth around the yapping dog.

“Don’t you even think about snapping at us.” She shook her finger at the mangy animal.

Mourning pushed the door open and peered into the dim light. “Hullo.”

There was a man inside, lying flat on his back on a worktable, feet dangling over the end. Olivia might have taken him for dead, but at the sound of Mourning’s voice he sat straight up. He squinted for a moment, then blew his nose into his hand and wiped it on his backside as he got off the table.

“Hullo to you.” His white beard was long and stringy and he wore only a floppy gray hat, long-sleeved long johns, and scruffy boots.

“This be a workin’ mill?” Mourning skipped introductions. He often avoided having to decide whether or not to offer his hand to a white man, and Olivia was sure that was one hand he had no interest in shaking.

“Sure is. Right busy one. But ever body’s gone today. Some kind of goings on over in Anthony. Picnic or some such. Left me here to keep an eye out. You come back tomorrow, you’ll see.”

“You work here?”

“Don’t come here for fun.”

“Can I order a door from you?”

“Surely can.”

Mourning drew a piece of paper out of his pocket. He had made a drawing of the door he wanted for the cabin, showing the measurements. A pencil stub lay on the table and he picked it up and wrote “Dor fer Skrugs Kabin” under the picture.

“Ain’t never seen no nigger what could write.” The man sidled over to peer closely at the paper and Olivia guessed he was probably illiterate himself. There was no hostility in his voice, only amazement, as if Mourning had sprouted a second head. Mourning handed the man the paper and he pressed it to his scrawny chest and patted it several times. He promised to give it to the owner of the mill first thing in the morning.

“You tell him I be back soon to settle on a price.”

“Surely will. I surely will do that.”

“You got a barrel to sell us?” Mourning asked.

“Nah. Might try over at the livery, if they’s anyone there.” The man had lost interest in them and was busy scratching himself.

Mourning turned to leave, but paused in the doorway to ask, “You know anyone might be wantin’ to hire a yoke of oxen?”

“Can’t say I do. But I’ll let folks know you’re offerin’.”

Their next stop was the livery, where they bought a barrel from the fattest man Olivia had ever seen. He was foul smelling and no more friendly than the man at the saw mill, but at least he was fully clothed. Mourning asked him the same question about the oxen and received the same reply.

“Well, I guess that’s it for our big day in town,” Olivia said when they went back outside. “Lucky I dressed for the occasion.”

“You spectin’ a welcome committee gonna invite us to Sunday potluck?” Mourning asked, unperturbed by their lack of social success.

“I certainly did expect to see some normal looking folks. Someone who might bother to ask who we are and where we’ve come from.” She climbed up into the wagon and looked around. “This surely is the right place for the likes of us. No need to make up some story about my poor dead husband for the folks in this town. We could probably live out at the farm for twenty years without anyone taking notice.”

“He say they all gone to a picnic. Next time we come, folks’ll be home.”

“I don’t think I’d feel like knocking on any of those decrepit front doors, even if folks
were
at home.”

She thought she was going to cry, but took a few deep breaths and held it in. Mourning drove back the way they had come.

“At least we can stop at the General Store,” Olivia said, though she had lost her enthusiasm. It looked no better than the other buildings – weather-beaten wood and one filthy window. “I think it’s open. I saw something move in there.”

“You go ’head,” Mourning said and stopped the wagon for her to climb down.

A musky smell greeted Olivia when she pushed the door open. A young woman stood behind the counter. She might have once been pretty, before she was marked by the pox. If not for the scars, she would have reminded Olivia of a younger, clean-scrubbed Jettie Place.

“Hullo, I’m new in the area and wanted to get acquainted. Olivia Killion.” She offered a hand. “I’m out at the Scruggs cabin. Lorenzo was my uncle.”

“Norma Gay Meyers.” The woman returned the smile and warmly took Olivia’s hand in hers. “Your uncle left here before I ever got to meet him, but I know the place. Nice that it won’t be standing empty no more. Always glad to see new faces. Mrs. Stubblefield …” Miss Meyers turned to a woman in the back of the store. She had been fingering bolts of cloth, but now took a step forward and made no effort to hide her head to toe scrutiny of Olivia.

“Olivia Killion, please make the acquaintance of Iola Stubblefield,” Norma Gay said brightly, pronouncing the woman’s given name “Eye-o-la.”

The face staring at Olivia was plain looking, the kind of woman whose age is hard to tell. Olivia guessed mid-thirties to early forties and almost sighed her disappointment. She’d been hoping her neighbor would be young and cheerful, with a passel of sweet-looking children trailing behind her.

No matter where she was, Mrs. Stubblefield would immediately be recognized as a farmer’s wife. Thin, colorless, dressed in brown calico, wispy hair pulled back in a bun. She had a pointy chin that she held slightly upwards and deep lines ran along the sides of her face and between her eyebrows. She studied Olivia with pursed lips, but the smile that finally broke across her face seemed genuinely friendly.

“Mrs. Stubblefield and her husband have a place about eight miles southeast of you,” Norma Gay offered.

“Well, praise the Lord, nice to meet you.” Iola Stubblefield pumped Olivia’s arm. “Can’t tell you how good it will be to have neighbors. You need any help settling in, anything at all, all you got to do is holler. My Filmore can grow anything. Strong as an ox and not quite as dumb. And I’m the closest thing there is to a doctor for miles.”

Well, here is living proof that women make lives for themselves out here,
Olivia thought. But she gazed at Iola’s leathery face with concern.
Is that how I will look in a few years? Will my eyes be as steely and cold as hers?
There was something unsettling about those eyes, but Olivia chose to pay attention only to Iola’s smile and the words of welcome that passed her lips.

“Have you trained as a nurse?” Olivia asked.

“Nah, none of that book learning. I had the best training there is – doing. I’ve birthed more babies than anyone calls himself a doctor. My grandma taught me everything a body can know about medicines and you’d be surprised how much more I’ve learned from the savages. They may be godless heathens, but they have their own ways with the plants growing around here.”

“And your husband farms?”

She nodded proudly. “This year he’s putting in five acres of buckwheat, five of corn, and two of potatoes.”

“Do you have a team of oxen?”

“No, not yet. Filmore does all his own pushing and pulling. Like I said, he’s big as an ox himself. And twice as stubborn. Takes on a hired man to help him, come planting and harvest time.”

“Do you think he’d be interested in hiring the use of a team? Ours is good and strong. It wouldn’t have to be for cash. Could be for eggs, milk, and butter or in exchange for work.”

“Well, I think he would. You tell your husband to come over and exchange words with him.”

“There’s just me. I don’t have a husband.” Olivia held her breath as she watched for Mrs. Stubblefield’s reaction.

“Lordie me, what’s a child like you doing out here on her own?”

“My uncle left the land to me. I thought I’d have a go at it. If I don’t, I’ll lose my claim. I’ve got a good hired man to work it for me.”

“I never have heard of such a thing. Not never in my whole life. Why you’re hardly grown. How in heaven’s name did your family let you go off like that?”

“We want to keep the land in the family.” Olivia took a step back, eager to end the conversation. “Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Stubblefield,” she said in the warmest voice she could muster, forcing her face into a sweet smile. She returned to Miss Meyers and asked for a dozen eggs, a tin of milk, and a slab of butter. She also selected a simple rag rug from the pile on the counter and asked for a calendar. She paid quickly and prepared to flee, before her new neighbor could ask any more questions.